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By
Bob
Armstrong
Winnipeg
Free
Press
Wednesday,
June
12,
2002
A
one-time
garbage
dump
along
the
Seine
River
will
be
coming
back
to
life,
thanks
to
a
"community
greening"
event,
in
which
volunteers
planted
400
trees
and
bushes
and
cleaned
up
trash.
Volunteers
from
Save
Our
Seine,
College
Jeanne
Sauvé,
the
Sea
Cadets
and
the
Marlene
Street
Tenants'
Association
joined
Urban
Green
Team
members
for
a
day-long
clean-up
and
tree-planting
on
June
1.
The
project
is
intended
to
beautify
one
of
the
most
heavily-abused
stretches
of
the
Seine.
The
St.
Vital
municipal
dump
was
once
located
beside
the
river
near
Marlene
Street,
says
Jules
Legal
of
Save
Our
Seine,
which
was
founded
in
1990
to
beautify
one
of
the
city's
smallest
and
most
neglected
waterways.
The
old
dump
site
needs
a
great
deal
of
TLC
to
bring
it
back
to
a
natural
state;
after
the
landfill
closed,
the
four-to-five
acre
site
was
used
a
snow
dump,
and
the
sand,
gravel
and
salt
from
the
city
streets
made
it
difficult
for
vegetation
to
reclaim
the
site.
"We
planted
about
400
trees
and
bushes,"
said
Legal.
"But
this
was
a
more
elaborate
greening
than
some
that
we've
done
because
of
the
condition
of
the
site.
We're
crossing
our
fingers
and
hoping
they
will
survive."
In
order
to
give
the
trees
a
fighting
chance
in
the
inhospitable
environment,
the
volunteers
added
topsoil
and
biodegradable
fabric
blankets
to
protect
them
and
help
them
grow.
Cheryl
Heming,
the
City
of
Winnipeg's
naturalist,
helped
the
groups
select
trees
and
bushes
that
would
grow
well
and
create
an
attractive
forest.
The
greening
volunteers
planted
Manitoba
maple,
green
ash,
chokecherry
and
hawthorne,
while
Green
Team
members
hauled
trash
away
from
the
site.
An
attractive
forest
would
be
a
major
improvement
for
the
vacant
lot,
say
area
residents.
"That
old
landfill
isn't
being
used
for
anything,"
says
Wendy
Normand
of
the
Marlene
Street
Tenant's
association.
The
Marlene
Street
residents
envision
a
park
with
a
walking
trail,
as
well
as
a
skating
rink
and
basketball
court.
"There's
a
seniors
complex
right
here
and
they're
looking
for
a
nice
place
to
walk,"
says
Normand.
Residents
also
hoped
to
establish
a
community
garden,
but
because
of
the
land's
former
use
as
a
landfill,
it's
not
suitable,
she
adds.
Working
to
beautify
the
river
is
only
one
of
the
projects
the
Marlene
Street
residents
have
taken
on.
The
association,
formed
five
years
ago,
holds
classes
and
a
mom
and
tots
group,
plus
a
Community
Connections
computer
lab-one
of
many
free
government
funded
computer
labs
that
allow
people
to
access
the
internet
or
use
computers
for
other
purposes.
An
annual
summer
picnic
in
August,
with
pony
rides,
kids'
games
and
a
silent
auction,
is
also
designed
to
get
residents
of
the
apartment
complexes
to
come
out
and
meet
one
another,
says
Norman.
The
Marlene
Street
residents
and
SOS
came
together
for
the
greening
because
the
riverbank
is
in
territory
that
both
groups
would
like
to
see
cleaned
up.
SOS
has
held
about
a
dozen
greenings
along
the
river,
most
of
them
further
to
the
north
towards
St.
Boniface.
The
groups
next
big
project
is
to
install
riffles-artificial
rapids-at
a
number
of
locations
along
the
Seine
River.
Riffles
are
carefully
designed
to
raise
the
water
level
on
the
upstream
side
and
to
aerate
the
water
as
it
passes
through
the
rapids.
The
group
has
identified
a
series
of
sites
for
riffles
from
the
Red
River
to
the
Perimeter
Highway.
One
of
them
is
located
below
the
former
Marlene
Street
landfill
site.
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